Listening

by Narinder Bazen

(You may print this out and add it to your Guidebook.)

We use three ears in death work. One ear is listening to our clients as they speak, and a second ear is listening to what is not being said. The third ear is listening to our own intuition, our own divine guidance, when we are offering words of support and care.

One ear is listening to the collective (culture/society), and a second ear is listening to the current under the collective. The third ear is listening to our own intuition, our own divine guidance, when we are offering words of support, challenge, and care.

Listening in death and dying spaces

Narinder’s listening pointers for Nine Keys apprentices:

Before any conversation with my death midwifery clients I stop to center myself.
Find your calm quiet center before entering the room of a dying person or someone who is recently bereaved. Find your calm quiet center before calling a client back who has reached out to you. Even if their death care need is urgent, we show up without an “urgency vibe.” Know what I mean? You may want to get into the habit of a centering moment before entering ‘deathing’ conversations.

I check in with my agenda before conversations with death work clients.
As best as you can, drop all personal agendas that will not serve a dying person and/or a bereaved person. These particular agendas will usually be holding hands with our egos. Womp! They are easy to spot with practice.

Aligning with a vibration of ‘no agenda’ feels expansive. It can be hanging out with Infinity. Okay! Sometimes our personal agendas have spiritual belief systems in them. We are very aware of our spiritual belief systems and how they may add to, or take away from, our client’s autonomy.

When I enter the room where someone is dying, I understand that I’m walking into a holy space. I listen to this vibration too.
It is perfectly okay to pause and center ourselves before entering into a dying person’s space. Personal rituals like prayer while washing our hands upon arrival, or any other ritual you may find centering, are really helpful.
We don’t have to say much in holy spaces. We also don’t have to believe holy spaces are always somber. When we arrive, we assess the situation discretely with our eyes, our hearts, and our three ears. We connect. We become present to what is so. We enter softly. Death workers are really good at the “soft-entrance.”

After a few visits, we may make ourselves at home.

”Would you like to tell me what’s going on over there?”- asked with love.
This is my non-clinical, heart-to-heart, lead-in question when a new client reaches out to me and I call them back on the phone. We don’t have to be formal in our conversations with clients. We meet our clients where they are at. We don’t need to have “clinical” tones. They may be getting that ‘professional mask’ tone from so many angles: their doctors, their social workers, their funeral professionals, estate attorneys etc. We are present and we have time to take our time with our clients.

”Would you like to tell me what is going on?” You can start there.

It is perfectly wonderful to share silence with our clients.
Nine Keys death workers are really good at ‘reading a room.’ How they gained this skill may be different from one death worker to the next, even still, they are really good at it. If we sense that our clients would like to be quiet, we may join them in this quiet. Actually, sitting bedside and meditating is a wonderful way to “be together” with someone who is passing back and forth between The Great Sleep gates.
*If you are not comfortable with shared silence, please find some time to practice it. You may bring any concerns about this to a phone call with Narinder.

What I try to avoid saying:

Phrases like “You poor thing” and “I feel so bad for you.” don’t bring empowerment to my clients. Pitying phrases can sometimes weaken the spirit. We meet the spirit of our client where it is. If we sense help with empowerment is being asked for, we offer that. We treat people who are dying like they are living, because they are.

We refrain from talking about our spiritual belief systems, unless we are asked to share them. Imagine a caregiver sitting next to her beloved one who is dying, being prayed over by a hospice chaplain that is unavailable to grasp that the dying person is an atheist.

We should know very quickly in our relationships with our clients what their faith practice is. (In fact, when I’m talking to a caregiver for the first time I will usually ask something like, “Does your loved one have a particular faith?”)

We avoid talking about other clients: comparing illnesses, death stories, ‘family drama’ and so on. Although, we may say something like, “While working with another family I learned something that may help you all…”

Practice compassion for yourself if you think you have ‘said the wrong thing.’
We are human beings, we make mistakes.
You know what? When my stepmother was dying, and I was young and naive to the death process, I thought she was moments away from death when I leaned into her ear and whispered “Find the light.” She opened her eyes and turned her head quickly and looked right at me and loudly asked, “What?!” I then said, “Oh nothing. I didn’t say anything. I love you.” oh gosh…How embarrassing. I’ve learned since then.

I have a prayer I pray that protects my clients (and my apprentices) from my innocent mistakes. Maybe you have a prayer like that too. It goes something like this:

Great Mother, please may any mistakes I make not hurt my client’s heart. May my mistakes go right over their heads. May my mistakes not land.
May I learn from my mistakes quickly and walk in self-forgiveness.

Bless your ears, dear apprentice. Place your hands over your ears and give them a sweet compliment for the great work they do. Place your hand over your intuitive ear and give it a whopper of a compliment too!